I do love a good SHMUP, and a classic old-school style SHMUP with hand-painted visuals appeals to me even more. It probably appeals to a lot of people, actually, which might have something to do with why publisher Lace Mamba Global and developer Firepixels is bringing Solar Wings to the App Store.

Players will get to blow up all manner of fancy-looking enemy ships as they fight their way through five different worlds. Each with a collection of tough/large bosses and vessels. Power-ups are on hand, naturally, as well as a total of three selectable characters with their own personal ships, although the third character needs to be unlocked before they can be used. And it’s all depicted in that colorful hand-painted style I mentioned. Sounds tasty, right?

Solar Wings should be sitting pretty on the App Store come Saturday, July 28th. Any SHMUP fans can nab it for a very reasonable $0.99, assuming there’s no accident with the listing like there was for the game’s Desura release.

After a recent SHMUP release (okay, not so recent. And they pretty much do SHMUPs exclusively), Cave is poised to drop another one on us. Kind of. Bug Princess 2 Black Label is more like a Director’s Cut than a real sequel, but it might just be the be-all-end-all version for series fans to get.

The key story and gameplay elements are exactly the same as the original Bug Princess 2. Make no mistake, however, there’s new stuff to justify the purchase. Even more bullets are included in this version, which is something I would never have considered possible but there it is. Players can also recreate a near arcade-perfect experience by slowing down the action (i.e. simulating processor strain). But by far the most interesting addition is the new Boss Rush Mode. All of the massive bosses from the first and second game are here, and high scores can be posted for bragging rights. There was also mention of an option to save progress, but details are still a little scarce at this point.

Bug Princess 2 Black Label has no definitive release date or price at the moment. Presumably it should be out in the next few months, and most likely sell for anywhere between $5 and $15 using Cave’s previous titles as a guide, but that’s all speculation. It is coming, though. And it’s looking like it’ll be glorious.

I had a good amount of fun with the original release of Monster Shooter. It was a solid twin-stick shooter with a few minor issues, most of which have been addressed with updates, but it did have one major drawback. I’m referring to the ads, naturally. I mean it is a freemium title.

But just in case anyone considered the advertisements to be too much of a bother, Gamelion has been working on a new-ish paid version. Monster Shooter: The Lost Levels does away with the pesky pop-ups, sure, but there’s a bit more to it than that. More meaning more enemies, more levels, and more guns. For those keeping scor this puts the bullet point tally up to 60 levels, 12 weapons, 100+ missions, 3 planets, and 80+ Game Center achievements.

Having messed around with it a bit already, I can attest to the wonderful lack of ads. Personally I think that alone makes it worth the asking price. But it also seems to be a bit more generous with the cash (which could just be my imagination). Either way, it’s available on the App Store right now for $0.99. Assuming nobody’s dumped a bunch of real money into the freemium purchases, it should definitely be worth the trade up from free to paid.